by Adam Elkus

May 03, 2011

While I enjoyed writing my my own collaboration with Hakim Hazim, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the excellent Milpub post by Internet Clausewitz superhero Seydlitz89, which came out while we were editing our piece. Sedlitz89 has a beautiful analysis of King Jr. that is more in fitting with Clausewitizian thought than mine.

Also, I think the events of yesterday are a good opportunity to re-introduce A.E. Stahl and William F. Owen's great piece on strategy and targeted actions.

"I also agree with something Bruce Berkowitz wrote about Bin Laden years ago in his book The New Face of War: ‘History will not portray Osama bin Laden as a mere terrorist, rather instructors at West Point and Annapolis will cite him as one of the first military commanders to use a new kind of combat organization in a successful operation.’ There’s no contradiction here; Bin Laden joins a long list of military innovators who fought in lost causes. The advantage of being first is often fleeting and I think, hope earnestly, that that is what is happening here."

Although I certainly agree about novelty, it does make more sense to see OBL's organization and leadership in evolutionary rather than revolutionary terms, much like Mao himself evolved as one species higher than Leninist urban revolution. I do, however, think that the term "military" fits even if Bin Laden was never a "soldier" in the Western sense and more of a murderous and rapacious bandit.

Al-Qaeda, in its original incarnation on the eve of its 2001-2002 rout from Afghanistan was explicitly organized along military lines, with a set of operational commanders and a system of discipline and an emerging, if embryonic idea of "military science." It was never as formalized, say, as Hezbollah or the IRA and PIRA, but such a system existed. Al-Qaeda's transformation into a looser, more decentralized group is the subject of much debate and I look forward to reading Leah Farrell's thesis on the subject.

Some things that I thought of in the interval between writing that post:

First, while hate is not strategic it can be tactically quite effective. Stathis Kalyvas's work on civil wars shows how local disputes can intersect with larger causes (the core-periphery model of civil wars) and local blood feuds (such as those of the Chechens) are not unimportant. Personal reasons (a relative killed by an errant bomb) can also coalesce with national-political ones. Ali a la Pointe in The Battle of Algiersfinds a way to connect his personal feelings of humiliation with the humiliation of his people. But in the larger sense all large-scale conflict is driven by a basic difference of policy. Both Native Americans and the people who would become Americans wanted the land. One succeeded through greater force of arms in taking the land. Hate and misunderstanding certainly motivated both sides and made it easier for them to dehumanize each other, but the core issue was the land and who eventually would have it. I will elaborate a bit more on this later when I discuss the Clausewitzian trinity.

Second, I think M.L.R. Smith's article on strategic theory in E-IR is really, really good as a summary of neo-orthodox thought, with this point beautifully made (much better than I can with sleep deprivation):

It is sometimes said that strategic theorists assume rationality on the part of those whom they study because they cannot assume anything else.To pass judgment on whether anyone is rational or irrational in political life is to assume that one exists in Olympian detachment with a unique insight into what constitutes supreme powers of reasoning (a self-evidently delusional position). The assumption of rationality, however, does not suppose that the actor is functioning with perfect efficiency or ‘that all rational decisions are right ones, merely that an actor’s decisions are made after careful cost–benefit calculation and the means chosen seem optimal to accomplish the desired end.

May 02, 2011

I am very tired, and have gotten very little sleep lately. Part of that was due to last night, which was one of the more joyful and hopeful moments I have seen in years, even if I didn't go outside like everyone else. I have longer thoughts coming in the Huffington Post (just finished filing new blog), but I want to say something about the fake quote circulating on Facebook:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

While the sentiments might seem superficially reasonable, a closer reading betrays a misunderstanding of human conflict--violent or nonviolent.

War doesn't happen because of some kind of pure and abstract hatred. This quote conjures up the stereotypical image, spread by Balkan Ghosts and other books, of two tribes with "ancient hatreds" that control their minds. While primal violence and enmity is important, but to see conflict through the prism of "hate"--sustained by hate and somehow eroded by an equally vague "love" is simply bizarre. War is fundamentally about politics. Conflicts are fought for political objectives, even if those objectives might seem irrational to anyone except the one who sets them.

Adolf Hitler may have hated Jews and practically anyone who wasn't Adolf Hitler, but he has a very specific (if insane) political vision that was internally consistent and a set of political-military tactics to achieve it. Of course this "vision" was genocidal, paranoid, and utterly repugnant, but if he was driven solely by abstract hate he would have remained a failed artist of no consequence rather than a mass murderer whose quest to depopulate every town from the Polish border to Siberia was backed by the murderous organs of a totalitarian great power state. This is "rationality"--even if it is a kind that we find difficult to accept. Quite similarly, Osama Bin Laden had an internally consistent (but clock cuckoo) political vision and he also used brutal violence to try to achieve it.

If we accept Clausewitz's claim that war is "politics by other means," we have to also accept that there are no "irrational" conflicts. Perhaps the actors involved have miscalculated the relative efficacy of violence, as the Palestinians did when their return to violence in 2000 led to the IDF's stage-by-stage demolition of the Palestinian Authority. But to imply that actors are simply driven by positive or negative emotions is to insult their intelligence and autonomy.

Conflict exists on a spectrum of complete nonviolence to nuclear warfare. It's a basic fact of human existence, and how actors choose to achieve their gains is often situationally dependent. We all have goals, and often times they conflict with those of other people. Political realists from Machiavelli to Pareto share an assumption that politics is at heart a form of power over people--hence we often turn to politics to increase privileges, right perceived injustices, capture scarce resources, or spread our own systems of belief. Since politics determines the distribution of power, it is a basic part of our lives no matter whether we religiously watch C-SPAN or indulge the apathy that heavy does of American domestic politics often seems to cultivate.

So to return to the quote, whether or not you meet hatred with hatred or hatred with love really matters little because such terms are really too general to meaningfully describe the political reasons why people conflict. Sometimes those political visions are flexible and can be modified to fit reality if actors judge that the price of continued violence is too high, or actors can realize that their goals are best met through cooperation rather than conflict. F.W. De Klerk and the South Africans, in the end, judged that they could not maintain apartheid in perpetuity and the political vision outlined by Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress was acceptable to them. In short, you use the method most appropriate for your policy and most acceptable to your own system of morality.

It is no wonder that Martin Luther King Jr. never uttered such words, as he was probably the only major strategic and operational leader of non-violent struggle who truly understood strategy. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. simply didn't wake up and decide that he wanted to eradicate prejudice. He realized that an entrenched Southern oligarchy was using an interlocking system of legal prejudice, extralegal violence and intimidation, and paramilitary power to maintain a system of privilege built on the backs of African-Americans. Realizing that this system was the enemy's "center of gravity," the common spirit that bound it all together, King Jr. elected to challenge it not with love and flowers--but nonviolent action carefully designed to accomplish his policy. Like Mandela, King Jr. (with a little unintentional help from the more militant Malcolm X and plenty of help from the at times adversarial Lyndon Baines Johnson) demonstrated to elites that the system could not be maintained and forced them to reach an accommodation.

Bin Laden was never looking for an accommodation or a compromise. Like Lenin and Robspierre before him, he was looking to overthrow the ancien regime and put everyone associated with it to the guillotine. His fanaticism and willingness to hurt innocents knew no bounds, and we can only guess at what horrors might have ensued if he actually succeeded in his mad quest to impose his own political order on the Middle East. So in the end a Navy SEAL addressed the "root cause" of Bin Laden's grievances by putting a bullet through his temple.

The longer we go on believing in the message of this quote, that only love can vanquish evil, the longer we set ourselves up for tragedy. Love did not stop the Japanese rampage through China, love did not end slavery in the American South, and love did not stop Napoleon's attempt to dominate Europe.

This is not to say that love is weak---love is one of the most powerful things imaginable, and anyone who has experienced it or has had the pleasure of giving it to others understands that. Hate is, at least for me, the most draining thing imaginable and something I try to avoid at all costs.

But neither love or hate are policies, strategies, or tactics. They're only emotions and ideal categories. They are not instrumental devices that we use to get what we want. So let's stop pretending that they are causal forces, that somehow rejoicing in the end of a mass murderer is going to conjure up more hate which in turn leads to more conflict.

Update: Thanks all for the RTs. I did make an error when I said that King never said all of the words described--as some sleuthing has discovered, only the first sentence was made up. The larger point about King's use of strategy reflects the record--even if it is not really a part of how he is seen in popular history.

March 02, 2011

A good addendum to this post is Jason Fritz's look at the positive role of trained and competent police in places like Egypt:

[Exum] is right in the gist of his post - if we're invited to help these newly-democratizing nations, we should start with the police. I diverge from his position in that we shouldn't start a training program, we should initiate a police development program (again, if invited to do so). Funding-wise, a small team of police development experts that help the Egyptians revamp their police structure, policies, and police academy curriculum would provide dividends much greater than the investment. This should be our focus in the region, not military aid, which is expensive for the USG and provides little return in stability or U.S. national objectives.

There's a new article out in the Christian Science Monitor out on military assistance and its uncertain record. The gist of it is that assistance can have public relations blowback if regimes use US-trained militaries against their own people, strategic blowback if regimes (as they frequently do) use militaries in ways that contradict US national interests, and generally does not advance U.S. interests. To some degree, they are fair criticisms. Merely spending time in the US and being schooled in an American military system is not a guarantee that an officer will be sympathetic to US strategy or act in a manner that might undermine his home country's own national interests.

However, the article ignores several salient points about military assistance. First, there is something to be said about basic interopability issues. Turkey, an example cited as a failure of military assistance, is a member of NATO. It makes sense to familiarize Turkish officers with American military, political, and cultural mores in order to better cooperate with them on issues of mutual importance. Second, military assistance and training is often one small part of larger diplomatic package and cannot be viewed in isolation. Its political benefits or demerits must be judged within the totality of the larger relationship. While seemingly insignificant on its own, it may be more useful as a part of a larger patchwork of ties. Finally, assistance, if properly and narrowly targeted toward certain areas of policy, may have beneficial effects on larger US interests.

Indeed, the issue simply seems to be a matter of realistic expectations. No amount of time in Fort Leavenworth would convince the Turks to open their territory to a military operation they thought would severely undermine their national security. We are also perfectly aware of what Pakistan considers its primary interests to be and should not be surprised if they redirect our assistance to developing their forces towards fighting India. But just because we expected more than what we should have does not mean that assistance cannot be a useful tool when it is properly aligned with a fruitful policy objective.

Not surprisingly, the challenges of setting up a no-fly zone are a bit deeper than most would think:

"Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would first require bombing the north African nation's air defense systems, top US commander General James Mattis warned on Tuesday. A no-fly zone would require removing "the air defense capability first," Mattis, the head of Central Command, told a Senate hearing. ...Although [Qaddafi's] military is badly outgunned by US and NATO aircraft, the regime has dozens of surface-to-air missiles that could shoot down allied warplanes."

The issue is not really Libyan air defense networks--it seems that they are mostly obsolete , never entirely worked 20 years ago during Operation El Dorado Canyon, and increasingly falling into the hands of the opposition. Rather, the issue is that setting up a no-fly zone involves more than simply intercepting planes. It is a military operation against the remnants of the Libyan government designed to support the ground operations of the various factions arrayed against Qaddafi. And embarking on it may lead to other political and military commitments down the line--just look at the decade-long interregnum between the two Gulf Wars and the Northern Iraq no-fly zone. Even if the Libyan government is on its last legs, that might not be the end of the conflict.

Regional analysts warn that Qaddafi's total centralization of power has created a vacuum that will make the conflict's aftermath totally different from what went on in Egypt and Tunisia:

If Qaddafi’s demise only entailed the dissolution of his regime, it would be tempting to declare good riddance and hail the good fortune of the Libyan people in freeing themselves of the old regime in one blow, without having to deal with its remnants, as Tunisians and Egyptians are struggling to do. Unfortunately for Libya, the fall of the House of Qaddafi will not only put an end to his regime, but risks causing the collapse of the Libyan state. Qaddafi’s long reign did nothing to forge institutions that can ensure the continuity of the state beyond regime change. There is no well-organized bureaucracy to ensure administrative continuity. The military and security forces—the institutions of last recourse in weak states—were deliberately fragmented by Qaddafi into militias and special brigades led by his sons and counterbalanced by a large praetorian guard and various paramilitary groups.

It is understandable that the idea of a no-fly zone appeals to humanitarians because it represents a middle ground between a large-scale military intervention and what many largely see as toothless economic and diplomatic action. One of the more useful pieces of the Libya debate for analysis is the light in shines on the issue of gradations of force short of general war--and their role in post-Cold War international politics. Humanitarians share with civilian policy analysts in general a faith in what Micah Zenko calls "discrete military operations" (DMOs).

DMOs are attractive because they seemingly imply little long-term commitment, and rely on technological or purely military advantages that would appear to be devastatingly effective against grossly underpowered foes. Perhaps the classic example of this is the scene in Iron Man in which the title character blows away a dozen marauding Afghan militants without harming a single innocent, like a high-tech version of Dirty Harry.

Moral shame is often an effective tool for gaining support for DMOs. If the United States military is so vastly superior to the rest, humanitarians claim, why can't it use a tiny fraction of its force to wipe out a pack of Sudanese janjaweed or Qaddafi militiamen? Especially when juxtaposed with media images of large-scale suffering, calls for DMOs can motivate policymakers to make rash decisions about the use of force.

The problem with DMOs, as Zenko catalogs in his book on the subject, is that the use of military force--period--is much more complex than most people imagine. Technical matters of logistics and tactics often have larger political implications. Even the technical requirements tend to be routinely under-estimated by advocates of DMOs. Moreover, DMOs tend to have an extremely mixed track record of achieving both political and military objectives.

Ultimately, technical excellence cannot substitute for sound policy and strategy. And DMOs tend to be utilized as exactly that--a substitute for a sound policy because policymakers are reluctant to get militarily involved but feel a pressure to "do something."

Thus, formulating sound policy based on national interest, morality, and practicality is of greater concern at present than hastily establishing a no-fly zone simply to react to events.